More accurately Slammed - A totally stupid expression meaning to lower your stem as low as possible to achieve a fashionable low look with extreme discomfort for the rider.

Well, I don't disagree with you about the expression. But I do disagree about the discomfort. I find I ride more stretched out now than I ever did, with at least as big a saddle-to-bar drop, and do so for comfort as well as efficiency; certainly not for fashion.

Well, I don't disagree with you about the expression. But I do disagree about the discomfort. I find I ride more stretched out now than I ever did, with at least as big a saddle-to-bar drop, and do so for comfort as well as efficiency; certainly not for fashion.

More accurately Slammed - A totally stupid expression meaning to lower your stem as low as possible to achieve a fashionable low look with extreme discomfort for the rider.

I once posted a picture of my bent on the 41 "hot or not" thread. I was told to flip it and slam it.

I didn't know what it meant, and when I learned, I thought it was pretty funny. After all, you can't flip and slam a Bacchetta b-pivot stem and handlebar.

How hot and bothered someone chooses to get over the use of that expression is not something I can advise anyone on. I personally would choose other things, but, hey, that's what makes this such a wonderful world.

I posted in the road forum something or other about a Trek road bike I used to have, and someone told me to flip it and slam it. So I lifted it over my head, upside down, and slammed it to the ground. I had to re-adjust the bars and replace the broken mirror and computer, and it scratched my B-17 a bit but the bike was still ridable. That's when I realized it was time to move on to the Fifty Plus. Also the C/A - They don't speak fluent "bicycle" in the C/A . . .

Last edited by Mark Stone; 11-13-12 at 05:10 PM.
Reason: I don't know how to speel.

And I haven't worried about it for 40 years. The key to language is the recognition that it is a living thing that changes and morphs into something constantly new. When I don't understand something, I simply ask. Not that anyone here will likely care, but the use of such terms does serve a function. It allows others to seek commonality in a quick easy way. As an example, I recently I overheard a student saying he was chipmonking. He had no idea I knew what it meant. Too bad it didn't work. His attempt to be exclusionary was not the thing to which he should have been attending. So, when someone says something like, flip it and slam it, I just don't worry about what they are saying. I read it as a test of my fitness for their tribe as it were. And at my age in life, if I'm worried about where I belong, I've wasted a lot of years.

As an example, I recently I overheard a student saying he was chipmonking. He had no idea I knew what it meant. Too bad it didn't work. His attempt to be exclusionary was not the thing to which he should have been attending.

The French have a different tack on language. It has been controlled quite tightly by a committee that is made up of a intellectual experts in language and etymology; they decide (officially) what words can be used and what they mean.

Of course, they haven't been able to stop the unfortunate infiltration of some words, but I like that they still use "l'ordinataire" for "the computer".

Interestingly, the French have made a recent change to addressing females. It used to be "Madam" for married or older women, and "Madamoiselle" for young, unmarried women. Now, it's just plain "Madam" for everyone.

The Japanese also are interesting. We met an American cycle tourist near Chitose on Hokkaido who was finishing up a teaching stint in Tokyo with a big ride.

He said the Japanese generally take English as a second language in schools, and they mostly have knowledge of around 3,000 words. However, it's the way they say those words than can be tricky for Westerners.

For example, "orange juice" would be pronounced as "oranja joosee". Most of the other 2,999 words they know are pronounced with similar additional stresses.

He also said the written Japanese on signs can be equally tricky. "They like the look of Chinese characters, and often will plunk them in the middle of the original Japanese characters," he said.

Machka was much sharper at noticing this, but once we understood, the additional characters stood out like sore thumbs.

The French have a different tack on language. It has been controlled quite tightly by a committee that is made up of a intellectual experts in language and etymology; they decide (officially) what words can be used and what they mean.

Of course, they haven't been able to stop the unfortunate infiltration of some words, but I like that they still use "l'ordinataire" for "the computer".

Interestingly, the French have made a recent change to addressing females. It used to be "Madam" for married or older women, and "Madamoiselle" for young, unmarried women. Now, it's just plain "Madam" for everyone.

The French and Spanish have "academies" which protect their languages from foreign incursions and neologisms. They're pretty much ignored by the folks in the street. The most common situations involve computer-related terms. The academies come up with the official version of those terms, and the folks in the street use the English terms anyway.

The Germans have their academy as well, but it's mainly involved in rooting out verbs with French origin - a task at which it has abysmally failed.